<p>I've been reading some articles, and apparently, some if not most places count an A- as 3.7 instead of 4 (<a href="http://facweb.eths.k12.il.us/leej/CCC_WebSite/Reports/GPA.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://facweb.eths.k12.il.us/leej/CCC_WebSite/Reports/GPA.pdf</a>). This is the first I've ever heard of this....</p>
<p>Have I just been missing something general or is this news to anyone else??</p>
<p>Most colleges that I have heard of count an A- and A equally. Of course, there are some that don’t, but they are not so common as that article implies.</p>
<p>Rose-Hulman is the only college I know that doesn’t have A-'s (They have A=4, B+=3.5, B=3, C+=2.5, etc). Vanderbilt, the state schools in my state that I know of all have it. It’s not uncommon - that’s for sure. I’d say that .3 = +/- is pretty typical.</p>
<p>As far as them counting your HS GPA like that, I’m not sure: +/- modifiers aren’t required in High School so it’d be unfair, I believe, to use them in calculating HS GPA’s… Particularly because I don’t even think they appear on final grades in one’s high school transcript (at least not mine…)</p>
<p>Oh. Yeah, I know that your college GPA is normally counted like that. I think the OP was asking specifically about high school GPAs. And as you say, that would be rather unfair; teachers don’t even always have a consistent way of giving the + or - at my school.</p>
<p>Eh… I had like a dozen A-'s for my Yale App… They didn’t care.</p>
<p>at my school, for example, the difference between an A+, A, and A- is clearly defined. if your school is like mine, colleges can use the +/- signs to distinguish between applicants from your school.</p>
<p>We have +/- for our GPAs, but all they show on our transcript is our letter grade.</p>
<p>“Most colleges that I heard of count an A- and A equally.”</p>
<p>Really? I’m not saying you are wrong, but I’ve never heard of a college that counts an A- and an A equally. Which ones count them equally?</p>
<p>I live in California, so I’m most familiar with our two state university systems, all campuses of which explicitly count an A- the same as an A. I have to admit I haven’t seen many other colleges specifically say they do that, but I haven’t seen many say they DON’T either. And even the few actual admissions officers I’ve been able to talk to don’t seem to think it’s standard procedure.</p>
<p>An A- is not an A.
At our high school, there is no A+
An A is 95-100
An A- is 92-94
An A is 4.0
An A- is 3.7
A B+ is 3.3</p>
<p>Students get a .3 bonus for honors, and a .5 bonus for AP classes</p>
<p>And that’s a good reason why colleges shouldn’t weigh an A- differently. At my school, some teachers simply will not give an A- grade, while others set the cutoff at 95%. And there’s the poster above whose school doesn’t even report any + or -. Colleges don’t accept the GPA your transcript has on it because they know different high schools calculateit differently. Why would they do any differently for the symbol that comes after your grade?</p>
<p>How is it logical or fair to weigh an A and an A- similarly on the college level? The student with the A worked harder and should be rewarded. This is such a foreign concept to me - never ever have I heard of an A- being a 4 and not a 3.7 and, quite frankly, I find it hard to believe that a college would do that.</p>
<p>Just to let everyone know, I’m referring to high school grades, not college.</p>
<p>I agree with amarkov’s position. I also live in California and every school system I have encountered treats an A- the same as an A. As stated, the - designation is just too arbitrary to judge so generally, as is the plus.</p>
<p>A number of my teachers count an A from 92 and a number count it from 94. These are AP classes, so assuming similar difficulty, how can a college accurately tell who really worked harder in what? Similarly, some count A+ from 97 while others at 100…so it’s just not practical to count symbols like that.</p>
<p>I can understand why they do it for college itself, but I cannot accept its validity for admissions purposes.</p>
<p>
Maybe it is different at your school, but my high school’s courses are quite demanding up to a point where the difference between an A- and an A is almost a matter of luck, especially at the highest course level. As long as a student can manage a heavy workload comparable to that of a top college, an adcom might not care so much about the subtle differences between the two.</p>
<p>At my high school, the A+/A/A- boundaries were clearly defined; A+ was >=97, A was between 93 and 96, and A- was between 90 and 93. In a non-honors, non-AP class, an A+ was a 4.3, an A was a 4.0, and an A- was a 3.7. This makes sense to me, but it also makes sense that other people would do it differently. I don’t think that the way your school counts A-s will affect you at all, really. </p>
<p>At MIT, where I go to school now, +/- grades are reported on your internal transcript, but on the transcript you send to other people and in your GPA, +/-s are dropped and an A+ is the same as an A-.</p>
<p>monstor,</p>
<p>I was referring to grades in college.</p>
<p>Ok, so we can agree that A-'s in high school probably will be counted the same as an A for most places?</p>
<p>
Ah sorry, misread your original statement. Still, I have heard that many top colleges disregard +s and -s when recalculating one’s HS GPA, and perhaps they do this because they are following their own grading policies of disregarding +s and -s.</p>